Looking Out From The Inside
by truglasgowgal
Summary: Chuck Bass is like tempered glass. Except he malfunctions when he shatters and Blair Waldorf is made to bleed because of it.


I've had the first section of this on my laptop for a long time, and although I originally meant to write a completely diff fic today, this sorta just happened instead. It's angsty and not _really _CB lol but I hope you like it, regardless.

A/N: The order reads Chuck – Blair – Chuck – Blair and so on, all the way through. It should make sense, although tbh it doesn't necessarily need to as **most** parts could be counted as being from either pov. Also parts in italics are quotes from earlier episodes.

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><p><strong>Title:<strong> Looking Out From The Inside  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I don't own anything. Title from Pearl Jam's 'The End'.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Chuck Bass is like tempered glass. Except he malfunctions when he shatters and Blair Waldorf is made to bleed because of it.

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"_Everyone has their weak spot. The one thing that, despite your best efforts, will always bring you to your knees, regardless of how strong you are otherwise."  
><em>_**Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key**_

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Chuck Bass is tempered glass.

He doesn't break; he's made of tougher stuff than that.

Instead, he shatters, into millions of pieces. Millions and billions and trillions; an innumerable count to make whole.

Blair Waldorf couldn't possibly keep up.

Pieces that scatter far and wide, high and low. She stretches out her fingers, digs her toes in deep; but he pushes her too far and he's always that one step ahead, that little shove behind; the laughter from below, the sparkling eyes above.

She's always been out of reach.

He's fired up to a certain point and then left to chill; he simmers until he hardens.

He's _chemically treated_; it helps with the resistance.

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No one really seems to know that Chuck is like tempered glass. Blair wonders if he himself is aware; she certainly is.

When she first met him she thought he had a chip on his shoulder.

When she grew to know him, she thought he was created by leftover pieces, stealing parts no one else wanted and fashioning them into something he could use to keep people away, cutting those who ventured too close so they'd learn their lesson and stay away next time.

When she loved him, she knew he'd been built to shatter all along; minute pieces of glass that weren't intended to cause damage to those surrounding, but destroy him whole.

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Blair's always thought she was different. Her father treated her like she was some fragile little thing; made of breakable, vulnerable glass. Her mother, on the other hand, applied heat and pressure and tried to mold her into something of her own true making.

She is different; she's not like him.

She's like that metallic glass; forged from a combination of elements that allow her to bend rather than break, to be both strong and tough and unyielding in the face of others who are either.

Chuck's been pushing her to her limits recently, but it's nothing new; her best friend's been joining in the act as well.

Just because those scientists are only now discovering this phenomenon, doesn't mean she's not existed for far longer. She's been displaying the same attributes for years, surviving when she rightly shouldn't.

She gets back up when she falls, makes up for any flaws others might try and pinpoint, works on her failings so she can learn from them, build on her mistakes.

Blair Waldorf is growing up, and she's becoming stronger for it.

She's leaving them all behind, and Chuck doesn't know how he's expected to survive in her absence. The cracks might not show, but he can feel the stress lines marking their path; she's the cause and soon she'll destroy him entirely.

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Tempered glass is supposed to have internal strains that are balanced, they're supposed to increase its strength, account for the isolation of destruction when it self-combusts.

Something went wrong when Chuck was created.

There's no balance to what goes on inside him; she thought she'd helped him move past some of his issues with his father, helped show him she was there for him even if his mother wasn't. Apparently his inner turmoil is now greater than ever.

Tiny little fractures all conjoined to mould him into the boy with ragged edges and the rough exterior.

He doesn't want her to run her hands over his front, smoothing him down. He doesn't want her to rest her dainty palms on his sharp frame, softening the points.

He just wants her.

He doesn't want the clack of her heels to mark their entrance, to detract from the grinding of his bones as the spurs grate against one another with every step.

He doesn't want the brilliant shimmer of her jewels to catch the light off every surface in the space they occupy, to detract from the malicious glint in his eyes when he settles his gaze on his prey.

He doesn't want her help, not an accessory on her arm, or a calming whisper in the dark; she's not sure she could be any of that anyway.

He just wants her.

Chuck Bass wants Blair Waldorf.

He's not accustomed to not getting what he wants; none of them are.

If he were like the rest of them, not her, but the others; the cracks would be visible. They'd be extensive, large and swooping, long and distended; unmistakable, ugly marks on a canvas assembled solely by their existence. They'd stain his skin like scars and everyone would see how tainted he was, how damaged; like a pitiful patchwork quilt long since frayed at the edges and trying to provide heat when there's a gaping hole in its middle, a jigsaw taped together under the pretense it isn't missing a vital piece at all and can function just fine without it.

They'd see and they'd stay away, because they'd know, as she does (as she wishes she didn't), that they're of no help to him and he's no concern of theirs.

And if nothing else, she'd at least know that some part of him is still human.

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He's like the villain of the story, except the fairytale used to be theirs and it was nothing like those written in children's books.

He's a monster, a beast, and he'll rip her to shreds and fall asleep in the remnants of all she once was as he wraps himself up in her entrails and clutches at her bloody, disembodied heart.

It's the only way it'll ever be his again.

That's not how it's supposed to be; he's not supposed to hurt her; but then, she used to say _he's_ not supposed to hurt himself either.

__I'm surprised you didn't shoot me yourself___**.**_

_I have, many times, in my dreams._

When he lashes out, he cuts her.

She bleeds, like the human she is.

He tears, because if nothing else, he's covered by a weak coating of flesh.

He doesn't cry and neither does she, though it would only slide right over both of them; fall to the floor like all the apologies he's never made and the body he continually steps over to get what he wants, to try live up to an ideal that he's never even known, that wasn't even real in the first place.

They say the sins of the father are placed upon the son, but there's only so long the child of the damned can pay for the wretched mistakes that went before him, before he has to start paying for his own.

In the grand scheme of things, it's not surprising when it happens.

He used to say he cared about three things, and then he cared about her. He put the belief of a legacy before her; it towered above him on expectations that were simply too high, but it's sinking further and further into scorched earth every day. He put that belief before her. He put himself before her.

He's always been selfish, a narcissist in the truest sense of the word; there's no masochist to watch it play out now, but the show must go on.

And if it isn't a spectacle, he doesn't know what is.

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It's a hideous noise and it echoes off every available surface. Rockets to the skies above Manhattan and skims across the water that surrounds it to reflect it further than the island alone can take it.

It falls somewhere between nails on a chalkboard and a torrential downpour and she knows what it means as soon as the vibrations rumble beneath her feet and her eardrums give way to the beat of his undoing.

Her cheeks are wet; she wonders if he's made her ears bleed too, or if she's actually shedding tears for him.

A million shards of glass cover the floor; they crackle beneath her feet, catch the light and wink wickedly up at her as if they've been privy to something that never would've happened under her watch.

There's no one else there, but she can hear him all the same, and it pulls at her insides, sticks the breath against the cage of her lungs; people can take history and learn from it, but it still exists to remind them they were part of something once.

_I'm not Chuck Bass without you._

The words ring in her ears, taunting her, and she winces at the distorted sound of his voice. She bites the inside of her cheek and hisses at the feeling, tastes the blood on her tongue; it's out of sight, so she puts it out of her mind, forces herself not to think of what's become of him.

She stands still in the space she used to call home, lets the scattering of ice settle beneath her feet, and reminds this place and anyone who might think otherwise:

__It takes more than ___even you to ___destroy Blair Waldorf.__

Her heels pierce the shaky ground she's chosen to stand upon, and when she looks down there's a series of disjointed blood drops lying like carelessly dropped rubies in a sea of diamonds.

_Check your own bloody hands, Lady Macbeth._

Her hands are clean, and others can make of that what they will; she has her own future to carve, by herself, for herself.

Not man, nor beast, a legacy chronicled in the city skyline or a constitutional monarchy; no one can define who she is except her.

And she knows exactly who she is.

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Tiny pebbles of glass hiss like Medusa's unruly snakes with the pressure placed upon them, a completely unorthodox sound echoes around the barren space like nothing quite heard before, a bloody handprint dries on the wall like a lasting reminder that some things can never be undone.

They had a life there, once.

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Chuck Bass was tempered glass and when the network he'd built himself upon failed; when _he_ failed; he shattered all at once.

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She's Blair Waldorf, and she's a force to be reckoned with.

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"_Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves."  
><em>_**Chuck Palahniuk**_

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The End.

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><p>AN: the 'metallic glass' actually does exist – if you just google it, it should come up. There's diff. mentions of it, but the most recent one (I think – don't hold me to that lol) is palladium-based, which I also thought fit Blair well considering it's so damn expensive and rare.  
>Also, "nails on a chalkboard and a torrential downpour" is actually taken from an article by Bob Sullivan about his glass shower door shattering on him. I've lost the exact site for ref. but if you're that concerned, you can type it into google and it should come up<br>I'm fairly plugging that search engine, right? Yeah, I don't get anything from it :/

Thanks for reading and reviewing. Please let me know what you think :)  
>Steph<br>xxx


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